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Step by step
The making of the TaitoRama MAME cabinet
Project MAME  -  Weecade   -  TaitoRama  -   Nanocade  -   ArcadeStik  -  econ
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Page 3 / 4
Paint Job & Control Panel

I sanded the cabinet, painted it with primer, sanded it again and finally painted it with a black oil based, semi-gloss paint from Sadolin inside and outside. It's beginning to look like an arcade!

After the paint had dried I mounted a pair of rather cheap Sony Xplod 5 1/4 carspeakers which I ordered from Pixmania.com.

I also mounted the 20" 4:3 Mirai TFT screen. For the mount I cut out a rectangular board of 12mm MDF/HDF board and screwed a support frame in each end, which I screwed onto the sides of the cabinet. I then drilled holes which fitted the VESA mount 100x100 on the screen.

Another view of the cabinet. The white bar in the backgound is a cable concealer, used to collect all the runaway cables in the cabinet.

Man, it's starting to look like a real arcade. Now let's see the artwork.

 

 

Since I like the classical artwork from Taito I found the logo on the internet and modified it to suit the cabinet in Adobe Illustrator. I especially like the 80s feel to it and the wave.

The artwork is self-adhesive and was made by a company in Aalborg, Denmark, Highly recommendable.

 

 

 

I mounted the stickers on the kick plate and one on each side of the cabinet. Looking good and retro. Just how I like it!

The wooden supporters above the keyboard was mounted to support the control panel. Under the supporters I have drilled two holes on each side of the cabinet for mounting of buttons for a flipper machine emulator.
Finally it's time to mount the controls. My father has access to a CNC laser cutting machine and made the control panel, according to the autocad drawing my brother made. The control panel can however also be made in wood or plexi/lexan.

For each player there are room for the joystick, 6 action buttons. Two buttons for choosing players in front and not visible on the photo there are two buttons for adjusting the volume and two buttons for skipping forward or backwards in music or coin-in for one or two players.

I painted the control panel, but that wasn't really necessary. I just figured that the sticker would fasten better if the control panel was painted first.

I also designed a self-adhesive sticker for the control panel in Adobe Illustrator.
  After the sticker was put on the control panel I began mounting the Sanwa joystick, buttons and microswitches on the control panel and afterwards I attached the MiniPac arcade unit and wiring harness.

The MiniPac controller and harness simply translates every push or movement with the joystick to keyboard commands.

I know, it looks totally insane, but there is actually logic into mounting the wires. The hard part was not mounting the wires to the microswitches, but to make sure that all the wires could be reachable from the MiniPac control unit. I had to try several layout sequences in order to cover the whole controlpanel and leave wires on each side for the two buttons on the side of the panel for the flipper emulators. Phew! 
  Oh yeah baby! Now were getting there. The control panel is mounted in the cabinet. Only four screws are mounted on the control panels, but it is sturdy as hell, due to the fact that it is metal. I also cut out a a plexi/lexan plate with the exact same layout as the top of the controlpanel to protect it from scratches.

After I mounted the control panel I couldn't hold back anymore and played a great deal of the old arcade classics and some good old Amiga games the whole night.

Just make sure you don't have to go to work the day after, oddly enough my boss at work didn't share my appreciation of old gaming classics, when I came in late at work.
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Page 3 / 4  -  Paint and control panel

 


If you decide to make your own MAME cabinet using my drawings, please feel free to make a donation,  as I'm trying to raise enough money to make a new up-right cabinet, that's hard to do as a student.

 


See the work drawings and artwork here
Video of the process here

 

[ Copyright koenigs 2008 ]